


Persona Fourze

by Chimetals



Category: Kamen Rider Fourze
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-24 22:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3786322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chimetals/pseuds/Chimetals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Persona 4 situation applied to the world of Fourze, rather than Fourze's cast being inserted in Inaba. Absolutely does not follow the plot of Persona 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Into the TV

"--and I'm going to befriend everyone in the school!"

Kengo rolled his eyes and turned his attention to anything except the naive creature that had joined his class. It was bad enough that students were getting killed; an exasperating classmate was the last thing he needed--it was hard enough to sleep in class _normally_. He noted the time on his watch and made a mental note to feign illness in five minutes.

If he lasted that long.

The new student was given the desk in front of Kengo's, which made him the first target for _~friendship~._

Sure enough, the other boy immediately turned around with a huge grin plastered across his stupid face. He thrust his hand practically into Kengo’s nose, with a whisper that had to have been audible on the other side of the classroom.

"Nice to meet y--"  
" _Kisaragi_." Oosugi snapped from the front of the room, and for the first time, Kengo was grateful for his homeroom teacher.

At least until he launched into one of his purity monologues.

Kengo mouthed along with some of it; Oosugi recycled his "impromptu" speeches enough that most of his students had involuntarily memorized them. “I’m not like other teachers" "I'll whip you hormonal wrecks into functioning members of society if it's the last thing I do ", "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell"-- really, it wouldn't be strange if someone yelled "bingo" in the middle of one of his lectures.

When the bell finally rang, roughly a quarter of the class all but bolted for the door, lest Oosugi think they _wanted_ to listen to him. Kengo grabbed his bag and followed as swiftly as possible, but a voice behind him said he hadn't moved fast enough.

"Utahoshi?" Kengo forced himself to not speed up; he hadn't heard Kisaragi, he had forgotten about the tour of the school-- Yuuki could show him around, she was just as obscenely energetic, and they seemed to know each other, anyway.

Quickening footsteps following him said the transfer student had other ideas. _Fine_ , Kengo thought, rounding a corner and ducking into a nearby storeroom. Kisaragi would arrive momentarily; Kengo clambered over a couple broken desks and chairs then onto a box of textbooks. He took and released a short breath, glancing down at his landing pad; an old box-style TV, abandoned years ago, either broken or outdated. Kengo didn't know which, and it didn't matter. He had happened across it during a class errand a few weeks ago, pushed it further into the pile of broken classroom equipment, and turned it screen-up to better facilitate an emergency exit. He heard the handle of the door turn; it was time. He stepped off the box, vanishing into the TV.

"..... Utahoshi?" Gentarou called tentatively to the empty room. He had seen the other boy enter, but he couldn't see any hiding spots or exits. After several seconds of leaning into the empty room, he gave up and closed the door.

\---

Static rushed past Kengo, sounding like wind as he plummeted through the other world. It had no name, as far as he had been able to discern, nor any non-hostile inhabitants. He landed on a stage, if it could be called that. Surrounded by a network of catwalks, it was bare, with a handful of unnecessary spotlights pointed at it. The most striking part, however, was the giant target that covered most of the floor--and the human shapes that adorned it. No matter how many times he landed here, it always reminded him of a crime scene; roughly a dozen hypothetical bodies, dropped from a height that he knew from experience wasn’t lethal, outlined with paint and carried off by police that didn’t exist on this side of the TV.

As much the fictional scenario made Kengo shudder, it was preferable to the outlines’ more probable cause.

Wisps of fog swirled around his ankles as he navigated the catwalks; it made judging the distance to the ground impossible, but as it only lingered in corners and along the floor, it was otherwise unimportant. A tingle at the edge of his mind whispered that one of this world’s inhabitants was approaching; now was as good a time as any to return home. He had figured out the route to his house--through trial and error--and if nothing else, it was an effective escape. Luckily, he didn't have to deal with the strange world's denizens--not any large ones, at least--he wasn't in the mood for playing waiting games today.

He found the exit point, closing his eyes and concentrating until he could feel his hand emerging from the TV in his apartment, bringing the rest of his body as it entered his bedroom. Much to his delight, Kengo crashed unceremoniously to the floor; practice had yet to make improvement, let alone perfection. Sighing, he deposited his bag on the ground and rummaged through it for the day's assignments. Skimming the readings for the required answers, he rushed through the work as much as possible. Closing the last book, he went to the bedroom and picked up the alarm clock on the dresser. It was set for three hours from now; Kengo doubled the time and put it back. He eyed his schoolbag, debating whether or not to put it away. He'd do it later, he decided, collapsing on his bed and trying to ignore the sun streaming in from the window; it's not like he lived with anyone else.

\---

"Have you heard of the Midnight Channel?" a group of students passed by, whispering excitedly.  
"Yeah--that's the one that shows you your--" Gentarou frowned as they passed out of earshot; did it show your death? Your first time? Your future? Your test scores a week from now? He made a mental note to ask Yuuki tomorrow, and headed to the shoe lockers.

"Ah--are you the new student?" Gentarou turned around; the speaker was a rather attractive lady, and couldn't have been much older than him, but her lack of uniform marked her as a member of the faculty. He did a quick run through his mental database of people; he hadn't met her yet.  
"I'm Gentarou Kisaragi," he offered his hand with one of his award-winning grins, "the man that'll befriend everyone in this school!"  
"Sonoda-Sensei," she replied, shaking his hand, “I hope you like classical literature." she smiled warmly, "I was hoping we could talk in my office?"  
Gentarou nodded excitedly and followed her back into the school. 

\---

An old television set flickered to life in a dark room. The program Kengo was watching didn't always come on, but when it did, it started precisely at midnight.  
"Nice to meet'cha!" Kengo gawked at the TV. Of all the people to star on the "show", it _had_ to have been _him_.

"It's time for Gen-chan's Fa~rend Contest~!” as the background exploded in cheap game show lights, Kengo grimaced in disgust. Maybe he should take a night off, crawl back into bed, and not try to save tonight's victim. It's not like he'd be successful, anyway.

"Daring Feats of Friendship, an Olympiad of Kindness, _and_ \--" the Gentarou on the screen excitedly paused for dramatic effect, "hours of listening to petty, selfish people whine about the most mundane and trivial garbage in their lives!" Kengo shuddered involuntarily as the "contest" host's expression twisted, a snarl of revulsion thinly veiled by Kisaragi's beaming grin.

"Finally, we'll wrap things up with our sob-story-telling competition, so stay tuned to see if anyone _else_ has two dead parents and grew up having to move every time they got to know a few people!"

The TV turned itself off, and Kengo stared at it for a few seconds--what the _hell_ was that last part?! He quickly put his sneakers on and crossed to the TV, reaching out and passing through its screen with first his fingertips, then his arm, shoulder, head--when it got to his waist he felt the gravity in his room lose to the perpendicular one in the TV, pulling the rest of his body rapidly through the screen.

Once more, he fell through the static and landed gracefully on his stomach; the fog swirling about from his entrance, Kengo picked himself up off the floor and focused. There--he could feel a potent monster near the entry point he used at the school. He headed towards it--it was most likely the false Kisaragi--while trying to catch the much finer twinge of another human. With any luck, they wouldn't be too close together.

He found the entrance before he picked up Gentarou's "signal"; until he passed through the red and black portal, he couldn't catch anything more than a vague direction of the other boy. Kengo emerged in a fairly large room; the fog was thicker from being trapped in the building, but he could make out hallways that stretched off in several directions, though he could see from here that one was a dead end.

The building itself seemed to be a school, but like everything in the TV world, it had been distorted into something unnerving; the paint on the walls was inconsistent, with no discernable reasoning in its blotchy several-shades-of-off-whiteness. Similarly, the shoe racks near Kengo were a chaotic patchwork. Forget the racks--not one cubby seemed to have been made of a single material, as though the manufacturer had built them completely from scraps.

Kengo started down a hall that felt like the right direction. The corkboards he passed held blank pieces of paper instead of class projects--even the neon colors of event fliers had been stripped of content. The classrooms were all different; size, number and kind of desks, type of board in the front--yet they were all stripped of name, or any other identifier. Even the view from the windows; they had either been painted over messily or boarded up with a downright unnecessary number of nails and planks.

The closer he got, the easier it was to pinpoint the two Gentarous' locations; as luck would have it, the human one was approaching his impostor. Kengo quickened his pace--maybe, just maybe, he'd make it in time for once.

\---

"I was getting sick of waiting."

Gentarou froze, still holding the gymnasium door half open. He squinted into the fog, then blinked a few times to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks before stepping all the way in. From what he could make out, folding chairs had been set up in several lines, school assembly style--the ends of the rows vanished in the fog. And sitting backwards on a fold-out chair, in the middle of the fusion child of what felt like every school gym Gentarou had ever known, was a near-perfect, living replica of himself.

Except, of course, for the strikingly golden eyes.

"Oh." the copy snorted derisively, "it's just you again." He stood, tilting his head and measuring Gentarou with his glowing eyes, "I hoped someone else would show up for once--"  He paced before his original, continuing to eye him. Gentarou approached halfway, watching his mirror image cautiously. "--but that was _stupid_ and _naive_ of me, wasn't it?"

"But that's how you have to be to get friends, you know." The mimic began in a parody of an instructional tone, " 'make lots of friends; they'll help you later'!" he grabbed a chair and shoved it violently, sending it crashing to the floor, "well when the hell is 'later'?!"

"The truth is that I'm sick of it." Gentarou's gaze darkened as his mimic drew closer, stopping only a few centimeters from his face so Gentarou could feel his breath, "--sick of bending over backwards for people that could care less. When was the last time someone called and _didn't_ need my help? They take and take and take and _take_ \--"  
" _Kisaragi!_ " an unfamiliar voice shouted from the opposite gym door. The doppelganger turned to the speaker with a dazzling smile; tentatively, Gentarou glanced in the same direction.  
“Utahoshi, right?” its voice dripped with warmth, but its yellow eyes remained frigid. “I didn't think my _best friend_ would be the first to compete, since he'd just _ace_ the roughest bits of friendship--”  
“Just a--” Gentarou began with a glare.

"--not like my 'forever' friends are any better.’’ he circled behind his dark-eyed twin, “They cry and cry when I move, but they all forget me a week later--"  
“ _Don’t listen to it, Kisaragi!_ ” Kengo screamed; the rising edge in his voice bewildered Gentarou enough to turn his attention away from the fake again.  
“Oh, _now_ he cares.” Gentarou’s own voice purred by his shoulder, breath tickling his neck, “He couldn’t leave the classroom fast enough before, but _now_ \--”  
“You have to get away from--”  
“Why do you still want to be his friend--?” The fake whispered over Kengo, lips brushing Gentarou’s ear.  
“Would you just--” he growled at his almost-mirror image, hands curling into fists.

“You know he can’t--”  
“Kisaragi, don’t--!”  
“--bring Mom and Dad back.”  
“--shut _up!_ ” Gentarou shouted. Gasping in the resulting silence, he added, “ _both_ of you!”   
  
The fire of his outburst deflated with a sigh, and he turned towards Kengo, who hadn’t quite closed his mouth. Gentarou seemed to take in the other boy’s expression with a reluctant gaze before hesitantly averting his eyes.  
“It hurts, you know,” he spoke softly, but the gymnasium caught every word and delivered it to Kengo, “getting cast away without a reason.” This time, it was Kengo that found it difficult to look at the other boy.

“We’ve barely met, but…” Gentarou took a deep breath and let it out, calmly raising his gaze again--to his other self. “But that’s not the problem, is it?” Golden eyes met dark ones; a moment passed, then another. After what felt like an eternity, Gentarou extended his hand. Kengo could only watch the bizarre scene unfold; the mimic took the offered hand--a handshake, a synchronized change in grip, then a separation, followed by--

Kengo’s eyes widened in recognition--it was the same unnecessarily complicated greeting Gentarou had used with Yuuki. Gentarou smiled, and his doppelganger looked almost vulnerable in his warmth.

“You don’t have to be lonely anymore.”


	2. Chapter 2

The other Gentarou seemed to reflect the feeling back just before his body lost definition. His outline blurred, his colors no longer distinguishable, his human form replaced rapidly with a thick fog. Midnight purple, it was unlike the haze inherent in the world; Kengo had seen the color before, but this was the first time it had dissipated instead of propagating. It swirled briefly before coalescing at chest height--seemingly in a trance, Gentarou reached for it; the fog reacted, gathering above his palm and getting absorbed by his hand.

Kengo stepped forward cautiously, lest Gentarou also turn into fog if he approached too suddenly. Even so, he couldn’t help his pace quickening--sure, the result would most likely have been the same without him, but for the first time, his rescue mission stood a chance of succeeding. All he had to do was bring Gentarou out of--

The person in question suddenly staggered back, his strength leaving him; Kengo put everything he had in one last dash and barely managed to catch Gentarou as he crumpled towards the floor. Unfortunately, supporting the dead weight of an entire person was not in Kengo’s repertoire of skills, and he was forced to sink to the ground or risk dropping the other boy. Gentarou groaned softly, but despite all the movement, remained unconscious.

Kengo sighed lightly--the worst was over, but he still had a predicament to escape. Closing his eyes, he focused on sensing a breeze-like feeling--the mental pull towards an exit point. The gym door Gentarou had presumably come through--yes, he could feel one in that direction, and it was close enough for him to transport Gentarou, even if Kengo had to resort to dragging him.

Miraculously, the route was free of monsters; Kengo tightened his grip on Gentarou and concentrated on leaving. Passing through a TV to an unknown location was tricky enough--visualizing the receiving end of the connection drastically eased the process, after all--but it was his first time bringing a passenger, and he had no way of knowing how large the screen in question was. Even so, he didn’t have a choice--leaving Gentarou behind would be the same as not entering the TV in the first place.

He closed his eyes again and concentrated on the feeling of being pulled back into the real world by his hand. He had tried going feet-first once, to prevent yet another sloppy landing, but had gotten stuck halfway and was forced to restart the process. He could take his time, at least--the monsters of the TV world seemed to have lost interest in the school and left. Kengo took a slow, deep breath, then another; he could feel the ripple start to form on his fingertips, as well as--

Kengo pursed his lips and tried not to let Gentarou’s breath on his neck distract him; he had barely met the guy, but Gentarou had unintentionally entrusted Kengo with his life--and his _deceptively_ heavy body. As if Kengo starting to process the situation had affected it, the ripple moved down his arm, picking up speed until he slid through it.

He opened his eyes just before impact with the floor. At least he had succeeded in dragging Gentarou with him. Kengo sat up and rubbed the part of his forearm that he’d landed on; he winced as he touched a particularly tender spot--definitely bruised. Gentarou groaned behind him.  
“What….?”  
“Oh, _now_ you’re awake.” Kengo grumbled under his breath, turning to look at the other boy.  
“Eh? Utahoshi?” Gentarou was massaging a reddening mark on his forehead, bewilderment plastered across his face; Kengo hadn’t been the only one to take damage from their clumsy exit.  
“Don’t tell me you _forgot_ what just happened.”

Gentarou removed his hand from his head and blinked a few times.  
“You mean the yellow eyes and--”  
“Yes, that.” Kengo let out a sigh of relief.  
“So… Where are we?”  
“That…” Kengo stood and glanced over their surroundings; it was too dark, and the building was only vaguely familiar. “I’m not sure, but it doesn’t matter.”  
“And…. earlier?”  
“That all happened.”  
“No--where were we earlier?”

Kengo glanced back at him--sugarcoating the truth would be as useful as a long-winded lead in.  
“Inside the TV.”  
“The…. _TV_.” Gentarou echoed. Kengo nodded wearily and offered the other boy a hand up. He barely kept from toppling over when Gentarou took it; he hadn't put half the effort into standing that Kengo had expected.  
"That..." Kengo shook the idea of demonstrating the concept out of his head, instead leading the way out the door. "You should probably get some rest--where do you live?"  
"West of the...er, was it south?" Gentarou mumbled with a frown. "I know how to get there from school, but..." he checked up and down the street, but showed no sign of recognizing the neighborhood.

Kengo sighed; he had spotted a familiar park at the end of the road.  
"My apartment is pretty close, you can stay there tonight." Gentarou nodded quietly; Kengo wondered if the energetic transfer student was just an act, or if the TV had really been that draining. As they walked, Kengo decided it was as good a time as any to explain the basics, at least.

"You wouldn't know since you just moved here, but people at our school have been going missing and then turning up dead. They're found after a long fog, hanging from TV antennas, telephone wires--places you shouldn't be able to get a body--and all of them killed of unknown causes. The police have been going nuts over it, but there's no way they'll be able to catch the culprit."  
"And that's because...?"  
"The world in the TV is the crime scene...and those impostors are the murder weapons. You saw how it was sorta foggy? Well--"  
" _Sorta_ foggy--?!" Gentarou blurted, "I couldn't see a meter in front of me!"

"What are you, _blind?_ It isn’t even remotely that--no, wait," He corrected himself, "It'd be better to investigate this tomorrow. Anyway," he continued, "when it's clear on this side, it's foggy in the TV, and vice versa. And when the fog lifts on that side, the creatures get violent...which is why the missing people reappear after a fog." Kengo stopped and began to fish his keys out of his pocket, "we're here."

\---

"Kisaragi… do you know how you got in the TV?" Kengo asked as he worked to convert the couch into a sleeping space. Gentarou shook his head. “Alright, fine. What’s the last thing you remember?”

"Hmm...I had left school late, and I was on my way home...and someone grabbed me from behind." Kengo waited for a description, a detail, even an exaggerated story about his fight against the attacker--but Gentarou had seemingly finished.

"That's it? Nothing else?"

"Yeah," Gentarou nodded, "they just sorta--" he mimed out the way he was grabbed, and the reason for his lack of struggle became apparent when he put his hand over his mouth and nose.

"...Chloroform." Kengo grumbled. "it's a start, I guess. Get some rest, and we’ll figure out what to do in the morning."

\---

The night had not been kind to Gentarou.

That was Kengo's conclusion as he paced the living room debating how to wake up this boy he barely knew. Finally, he gave Gentarou’s shoulder a tentative push. When he got all the reaction of a corpse, Kengo shook Gentarou’s shoulder firmly, but the result was the same.

Incredulous, he moved to drag the somehow-still-unconscious guest off the couch; Gentarou groaned a little and fumbled blindly at Kengo, trying to find the snooze button on his face. Cringing away contemptuously, Kengo more or less dropped the other boy back on the couch. He opted to give up, grabbing a sheet of paper from his bag, scrawling a note, and putting it where Gentarou would see it before leaving for school.

\---

"Mmmmnnnnnnnn---" Yuuki moaned anxiously for the sixth time, "where's Gen-chan....?" Kengo was finding it increasingly difficult to bite his tongue; school had started not even an hour ago.

"....mmnnnnnn--!" Yuuki had resumed her distressed noise at a quieter volume, but it was still painfully audible to Kengo.  
"He probably got too excited and caught a cold." Kengo grumbled back.  
"...mmnnh... you don't know Gen-chan." She trailed off without an explanation, "oh! But you take really good notes, right? I mean--" Kengo cut off the rest of her preamble with a sigh.  
"You want to copy my notes for Kisaragi, right?"

He glanced back at Yuuki, but she was still staring at him with "pleeeeeeeeease?" scrawled across her face. Resigned to his fate, he sighed again, a little less subtly this time.  
"What."  
"Will you come with??? You left before Gen-chan could talk to you yesterday and I know his cold would be instantly! cured if you just--"

"O _kay_." Kengo snapped; despite his manners, Yuuki looked like she had just gotten a ticket to space. Several hours later, she retained the same expression as they left the school together.

\---

"Kengo, that's not the direction the map says to--"  
“Kisaragi’s not _at_ his house.” Kengo continued in the direction of his apartment.  
“Ehhhhhhhh----?!”  
“You know how people have been turning up dead lately?” Kengo made the mistake of looking back; he might as well have claimed to have found her childhood friend hanging from an antenna that morning. “He got attacked last night, so I told him to just stay at my apartment.”  
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner---?!” Kengo shrugged and began leading the way.  
“The culprit probably goes to our school. The less they know, the better. But I figure it’s not you, since you’re friends with Kisaragi.” he spared another glance at Yuuki when she didn’t respond; her eyes were narrowed in thought.

They had almost arrived at the apartment complex when Yuuki spoke up.  
“What else?”  
“Huh?”  
“Clues! Information! What else have you figured out?” Kengo hesitated, but it would be better to share what he could--keeping it to himself hadn’t generated any leads, after all.  
“...The Midnight Channel.” he mulled his words over before speaking; Yuuki was watching him with unusually predatorial eyes, “The killer has some sort of influence over it--the victims show up on it once they go missing. Before it, too, probably, but I didn’t know enough of the victims to be able to say for sure.”  
Yuuki nodded sharply, “I thought so, too.”  
“Eh?”  
“It’s supposed to show your fated person, but for it to show you multiple people? And for them to all turn up dead?" She shook her head, "it can't _not_ be related."

Kengo turned his attention to fishing his keys out of his pocket, then led Yuuki into his apartment.  
"Seriously?" He asked the still-unconscious Gentarou, who apparently hadn't moved while Kengo was gone. He ducked into the bathroom--the note was still on the sink faucet, where he left it. “Seriously?!” He repeated. Before he could contemplate how it could be physically possible to sleep for so long, he heard Yuuki grunting from the other room. Kengo leaned out the door to see her trying the same thing he had tried that morning--waking up Gentarou by dragging him off the couch.  
“Uweh--! Gen-chan!” she winced as her friend blindly fumbled for the snooze button by her eye, but held on ruthlessly, and succeeded in dropping him on the floor. She dusted her hands off victoriously as Gentarou groaned.

“What….? Ugh,” he sat up and blearily squinted at the girl towering over him, “Eh? Yuuki? Why are you--ah!” he scrambled to his feet frantically, “What time is--wait, this isn’t my room…”  
“Finally.” Kengo grumbled. Gentarou stared at him blankly for a few seconds.  
“That’s right, we came here after you got us out of the TV--!”  
“After _what_ now?” Yuuki’s predatory gaze snapped to Gentarou, ready to pull out every scrap of information. Kengo did his best to keep his expression unchanged; he swooped in, grabbing Gentarou by the ear and hauling him into Kengo’s bedroom.  
“Either you had one hell of a dream, or your head got hit hard just now--”  
“Eh?” Gentarou protested, “But last night--”  
“I know a lot about medicine--” Kengo raised his voice over his captive’s, “--so just come here and let me check you.” He kicked the bedroom door shut before Yuuki could follow, then hauled Gentarou to the far side of the room.

“ _Do not mention the TV._ ” he hissed as soon as he released Gentarou.  
“But--!” the other boy had at least picked up the need to whisper, but didn’t seem to be following Kengo’s logic.  
“People go in the TV. Those fakes come out. Next thing you know they’re hanging from a phone line-- _dead_.” he glared at Gentarou until the other boy’s protests died on his tongue, “you still want Yuuki to follow us in there?” Gentarou glanced away at the floor.  
“We could just tell her and--” Kengo cut him off,  
“You really think she’d just stay on the sidelines?” he raised his eyebrows, daring Gentarou to disagree, “Even _I_ know her better than that.”

Gentarou pursed his lips and sighed, even while pleading Kengo with his eyes to change his mind.  
"Fine." He conceded; Kengo nodded in acceptance, and led the other boy back to the other room.  
"It's not a concussion," he announced as dryly as he dubbed natural, "any screws he's missing have been gone for a while."  
"Ehhhhh--" Gentarou was oddly convincing, "--it felt so real, you can't blame me for that..."  
"What was it, Gen-chan?" Yuuki cut in; Kengo watched an excited grin spread over the other boy's face.  
"You would have loved it!" He proclaimed, "me and Kengo went through this _huge_ TV, and we came out on the surface of the moon--and you were there--" it reminded Kengo of the fake Gentarou--the ease with which he pulled Yuuki into the story was downright unnerving. On the other hand, his tale’s accompanying imitation kung-fu would have been ridiculous on his golden-eyed clone.

"And so you threw the belt to me, and the monster charged like _grahhhgh_ , but I activated the switch like _fwah-pah_ \--" Kengo tuned the rest of the story out--why Kisaragi thought any of it was coherent or at a high-school level was simply unfathomable.  
“Yuuki,” Kengo interrupted Gentarou’s exaggerated one-man battle, “what do you think we should do about him?”  
“Do a-what?” his situation apparently hadn’t registered to the person in question.  
“Well…” Yuuki began; Gentarou would just have to catch on on his own, “Is there anything _to_ do?” Kengo frowned,  
“You think we should act like nothing happened?”  
“Basically.” Yuuki shrugged, “if we’re lucky, the culprit will react when they see Gen-chan.” Kengo blinked a few times and let the suggestion sink in.  
“That’s…” he nodded slowly, “And if they target him again, we’ll be more prepared.”

“Ah, right, Yuuki,” Gentarou seemed mildly concerned, “what time is it?”  
“Erm… I’m not wearing my watch, but--”  
“How long have I been here?” He whipped around to Kengo.  
“Almost a day.” he gave Gentarou a puzzled look; the latter didn’t bother explaining as he started scooping up his belongings messily.  
“Crap crap crap _crap_ \--”  
“Gen-chan, what--”  
“Gramps!” he replied hastily, trying and failing to keep his items from dropping to the floor.  
“Ah!” Yuuki began moving the same flustered way, attempting to help Gentarou. Kengo watched briefly, trying to piece together what had just happened. Gentarou’s… grandfather? Was his health bad? Last night’s Midnight Channel popped into Kengo’s head, as if the memory knew it was the puzzle piece he needed.

_...stay tuned to see if anyone else has two dead parents and grew up having to move every time they got to know a few people!_

He had disregarded the fake’s words, as it was just a knock-off, but it was the only explanation he could come up with for Gentarou’s and Yuuki’s reactions.  
“Hey, Kisaragi.” Kengo spoke over the pair’s frantic chatter; they had almost succeeded in balancing everything in Gentarou's arms, “What’s your house phone number?” Gentarou froze, stared at Kengo, then dropped everything he was holding without hesitation. Kengo picked up the nearby phone’s receiver while Gentarou rifled through the pile on the floor.  
“It’s--uhhh-----got it!” he pulled out a folded piece of paper and practically bounded over to Kengo. He seemed a bit confused when Kengo dialed the number, but didn’t pass the phone.

“Hello, I’m one of Gentarou’s friends--yes. Yes--Kengo Utahoshi. I was calling to let you know that he’s okay, he just got lost yesterday after school--” Kengo shot Gentarou a pointed look at this; he didn’t protest this time--rather, he looked a bit grateful for the cover story. “and I told him to stay at my house, since I didn’t know how to get to his--” Kengo winced slightly; the old man on the other end of the phone was playing it off as no big deal, but the relief in his voice made it clear that he was aware of the weird murders happening in the town. “--okay, no problem…. here.” he handed the phone to Gentarou and left him to his conversation.

Kengo crossed the room to Yuuki, who was gathering Gentarou’s messy pile into something transportable. He squatted next to her and began helping.  
“Um…” he whispered, “I know this is strange to ask, but Gentarou’s parents....” Yuuki stopped what she was doing to evaluate Kengo.  
“They died in a car accident when we were in third grade.” She whispered back; something tightened uncomfortably in Kengo’s gut, “what made you ask?”  
“...The Midnight Channel.”  
Yuuki blinked at him.  
“Kisaragi was on it last night--not the real one, more like…. an excellent clone with a messed-up personality. He…” Kengo tried to think of the kindest way to describe the fake’s monologue, “...said some stuff.” Yuuki mulled this over,  
“About his parents…?”  
“That was… part of it, yeah.” Yuuki didn't press the matter, and Kengo didn't see a reason to continue; Gentarou’s side of the phone conversation was the only sound as they finished gathering his things. His words weren’t distinguishable, but his tone was unexpectedly subdued. Once again, Kengo had to wonder if the energetic version was an act, or if this was just the serious side of Gentarou. Yuuki didn’t seem affected by it, however; Kengo was inclined to believe it was the latter. Probably.

“Haaaahh--! I owe you one, Kengo!” Gentarou must have hung up the phone while Kengo had been trying to make sense of his odd personality.  
_...and the energetic version is back_ , Kengo thought. The other boy seemed more relaxed, somehow, despite his apparent lack of stress over almost dying.  
“Okay!” Yuuki chimed in, mirroring Gentarou’s disposition, “It’s decided!”  
“What?” the two boys stuttered in union.  
“I’ll help with the investigation!”  
“Eh?”  
“You just decided that on your own!” Kengo’s retort only widened Yuuki’s smile.  
“We’re more likely to find a clue with more people, right? And we can take turns staying up for the Midnight Channel.” Kengo bit his lip--without exposing the TV world, opposing her aid wouldbe pure nonsense.

“Alright, fine.” He sighed, “we’ll patrol the school tomorrow, see if anyone acts oddly when Kisaragi shows up. But for now, you should both get home before it gets dark.”


	3. Chapter 3

The plan was to discuss their patrol strategy at lunch, then set out to scour the school for potential culprits the second class ended--or at least, that was the impression Yuuki had been given. Gentarou still knew nothing about the TV world, and the last thing Kengo needed was the other boy accidentally getting trapped on the other side of the screen. If the transfer student was going to make it through this, Kengo needed to lay out some basic rules--rules that couldn’t be mentioned anywhere near their ally’s curiosity.

So he had texted Gentarou a couple hours after the two childhood friends had left his apartment; Kengo would feign illness to leave class and "go to the nurse's office", then enter the TV, where they were guaranteed to not be overheard. With Kengo “sick”, Gentarou and Yuuki would--ideally--split up after school to gather info, at which point Gentarou would meet up with Kengo.

Kengo executed his part of the plan without a hitch; in fact, it was made even easier by Yuuki leaving for the restroom during second period. Kengo took the opportunity to excuse himself while she was gone; Yuuki wouldn't know he had left until she returned, at which point she wouldn't be able to follow him without arousing suspicion. With the hallways empty, Kengo had no problems getting to the storage closet and into the TV; all he could do was hope Gentarou could pull off his half just as easily--or at least not tell Yuuki about the TV world.

Kengo took a seat on one of the catwalks, hanging his feet over the edge, then closed his eyes, and extended his mental sensors as far as possible. Despite his range plateauing a few weeks ago, it was a useful exercise, and it let him pick up if someone had been thrown in the TV without having to wait for the Midnight Channel. Currently, however, Kengo was the only sentient being on this side of the TV.

He continued to occupy himself by tracking as many of the world's inhabitants as he could. After a bit, Kengo switched to locating the one unusual denizen--a particularly strong monster that had been apparent for about as long as Kengo had been able to sense this world’s creatures. He had searched for it a few times, on his more daring days, but had never succeeded in spotting it. To be honest, it felt like a doppelganger, but try as he might, Kengo hadn’t been able to so much as _sense_ the host, let alone zero in on them for a rescue.

A graceless landing and a grunt interrupted the silence of the TV world; Gentarou had arrived. Kengo stayed where he was, turning his radar to the newcomer; Kisaragi’s “signal” had changed from when he had been stranded against his will. It still had a distinct human-ness to it, but Kengo could swear it had notes akin to this world’s denizens.  
“Kengo…?” the person in question opened his eyes and examined the new arrival; Gentarou was only a couple meters away, but he was facing the completely wrong direction. “Kengo….?” his voice had taken on a tinge of concern, “Are you there…?”

“You really can’t see anything here, can you?” Kengo mused loud enough for Gentarou to hear; the other boy glanced around for the source of the voice, but still seemed unable to spot his companion. Kengo stood and approached as quietly as possible; when he was about a meter and a half away, Gentarou’s eyes finally locked on to him.  
“Kengo! Where _were_ you?”   
“Close enough to throw a rock and hit you.” Kengo shrugged, “were you followed?”   
Gentarou energetically shook his head no, “I made sure Yuuki was outside the building before coming here.” his expression wilted back into unease; Kengo pretended not to notice the effect tricking Yuuki had had on her friend.

“You said this stuff--” Gentarou idly ambled towards an edge of the entrance stage, “--doesn’t bother you?”  
“Normal fog is harder to see through.”   
“Huh.” Kengo watched him find and lean on a railing, then glance back; Gentarou’s eyes scanned the area fruitlessly--Kengo was hidden again. He turned back to the void and lazily swirled invisible tendrils of mist about with a finger. Kengo crossed over to his side.

“You look like you want to ask something.”  
“Er, well…” Gentarou rubbed the back of his neck, “I’d just been thinking… how did you deal with your shadow?”   
“My what?”   
“You know, like--” Gentarou turned to Kengo and made finger goggles with his hands.   
“The...” Kengo wrinkled his nose until the response’s meaning registered, “just say ‘your fake’!”   
“...Oh. Yeah.” Gentarou avoided eye contact; Kengo gave his comrade a puzzled frown, then answered him.

“I don’t have one.” the signal of the host-less doppelganger tugged at the back of his mind, “well, I don’t think I do.” he shrugged the thought off, “he would have come after me by now.”  
“Is that so….” Gentarou muttered.   
“What?”   
“Honestly, I don’t really know. Or, I guess I don’t really understand it in the first place.”   
“If you’ve figured out anything at all….”   
“It’s just….weird. You not having a shadow.”   
“Well, you weren’t able to enter a TV on your own before, right?”   
“Eh?” Gentarou jerked to fully alert. Kengo eyed him sideways, eyebrows raised.   
“I’ve been able to come here from the beginning. It’s most likely related” The conversation died down again, and the two boys stared into the abyss in silence.

“Yuuki said...the victims show up on the Midnight Channel, right?”  
Kengo nodded.   
“Is that how you knew where I was?”   
“That you were in here?”   
“Well...that, but--that place was a maze, remember?”   
“Yeah.” Kengo sighed slightly, “I can tell where everything is, to an extent. The fakes’ signals--”   
“--Shadows.” Gentarou corrected.   
“Why are you so hung up on calling them that?” Kengo snapped.   
“...I was at my last school for a couple years, and we had classes on psychology.” Gentarou gazed into the fog wistfully, “I didn’t understand it too well, but one of my friends loved it, and he’d explain everything so I could get it, and, well….” He trailed off; Kengo kept quiet and waited. “Have you ever read Jung?” Gentarou asked abruptly.   
“Who?”   
“…I don’t remember the theory much, but, well...that other me just seemed like a Jung shadow.” Gentarou nodded to himself as though his explanation had meant anything to his audience. "...at least, if it was a separate person.” he added.

Kengo wrinkled his brow; even if they were friends for twenty years after this, he didn't think he'd ever believe Gentarou had lectured him on psychology.  
"Anyway." He growled.   
"Heh," Gentarou grinned sheepishly, "sorry, go ahead." Kengo huffed irritably and picked up where he left off.   
"I can sense _shadows_ ,” he shot a glare at the other boy, “but also the general direction that people are in. That's how I tracked you down." Gentarou was frowning in thought again, “what?”   
“I...don’t know. It’s just weird--all of it.”   
“We went _into_ a _TV_ . I’d be more surprised if things were normal.”   
Gentarou laughed.

“So, what do we do now?”  
“Huh?”   
“We have to save people, right? Where do we start? How far away are they?”   
“Well, first of all, someone has to actually be in here.” Kengo replied dryly.   
“Oh, right. Then… should we go exploring?”   
“Too risky. We shouldn’t bother until someone is in danger. Actually--” Kengo checked his watch, “--we should get going. It’s getting late.”   
“Eh? But it’s, what, maybe four right now? Four-thirty?”   
“Try six at night.”   
“No way.”   
“Time passes differently here.” Kengo turned his watch so the other boy could see--the second hand was erratically jumping large portions of its track.   
“That’s just…..wow.”   
“Yeah. Now come on.” Kengo put his hand on Gentarou’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and focused on exiting the TV. He heard his companion gasp, but resisted the temptation to look. A few seconds later, he felt the sensation of passing through the barrier between worlds, then the gravity shifted, and he and Gentarou landed in a pile on the floor.

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-oww…!” Gentarou sat up and began rubbing the part of his back he had slammed into the ground with, “is it always like that???”  
“Pretty much.” Kengo replied; it wasn’t until he heard movement behind him that he remembered the school closet was supposed to be _different_ , due to the exit being screen-up.

“Ehhhhhhh--you really _do_ come out of the TV.”  
“Y-Yuuki!” Gentarou yelped. Kengo snapped his gaze to the other boy,   
“You said you weren’t followed!”   
“I wasn’t!”   
“ _You_ were.” she pointed at Kengo, “I thought you’d try to ditch me, so hid when I left class, and tailed you when you left.” Kengo’s jaw was hanging open at this point, “I saw you go into this room, but it was empty when I looked, and the door I was watching was the only way out. But Gen-chan mentioned TVs last night--” She stepped victoriously on the old TV. “--and I found this, so I decided to wait. Now,” Yuuki raised her eyebrows expectantly, “what’s _really_ going on?”

"I _told_ you...." Gentarou muttered; Kengo sighed--he’d been doing that a lot lately.  
Fine.” Kengo stood and brushed himself off, “you can explain it since you’re so eager. _I’m_ going home.”


	4. Chapter 4

A week and a half went by without incident; Kengo’s daily strolls in the TV turned up no victims, and the weather was predicted to have nothing heavier than a small shower for a while. No one even reacted to Gentarou’s continued existence; life was as normal as it could be--with Gentarou around, at least. Kengo couldn’t walk down the hall with the guy without having to stop and backtrack _at least_ four times to peel him off whatever friend he was getting life updates from.

Gentarou continued to swear up and down that the shadows were some sort of psychology thing, a suppressed part of their host, but Kengo had increasing difficulty convincing himself that the cynical, golden-eyed Gentarou had any relation to the energetic personification of friendship. In fact, the Midnight Channel began to feel like a bad dream, and Kengo half-expected his hand to hit glass each time he tried to enter the other world. Still, on one rainy night, the Midnight Channel proved to be more than a figment of his memory.

Kengo’s phone rang at promptly 12:03 in the morning; blearily, he fumbled the answer button--the caller’s energetic voice was audible even before he brought the speaker to his ear.  
“I’m guessing something came on…?”  
“Yes!” Yuuki replied; it had been her turn to keep the midnight vigil, “It was all static-y and foggy but someone’s in the TV!”  
Kengo sighed, “No, they’re not. Not when the image is garbage.”  
Yuuki fell silent on the other end of the line; Kengo could practically hear her persistent stare.  
“Okay, fine, I’ll take a look in a sec. Did you see anything we can use?”  
“Mm. They had short hair and our school’s cheerleader uniform.”  
“Good…” Kengo couldn’t help but smile, “that narrows down the possible victims a lot. Great work, Joujima. Get some rest.”  
Yuuki responded with an excited noise, and ended the call.

Kengo pulled on his shoes and climbed into the TV, not bothering to change out of his pajamas; he wouldn’t be gone long, and he didn’t intend to pick any fights with shadows--a T-shirt and lounging pants would be more than enough. He expanded his radar as soon as he got to his feet; sure enough, the world had shifted to accommodate a new section, but it was uninhabited by either note-worthy shadows or humans. As he was about to leave, a human signal flared up--someone had just entered the world. Kengo stiffened, focusing his senses on the newcomer, then swore under his breath; it wasn’t a stranded victim, but Gentarou’s weird demi-shadow signal.

Yuuki must have called him, although Kengo couldn’t think of even one reason for her to have put her friend in danger like this; shadows would have no trouble sneaking up on Gentarou while he was alone. Kengo sprinted toward his signal; at least a few of the world’s denizens were in the same direction, though he couldn’t distinguish their relative distances to each other from here. Luckily, Gentarou wasn’t too far, but when Kengo rounded a corner and spotted the other boy, he briefly contemplated leaving and going back to bed.

Gentarou had outfitted himself for battle, wearing shinguards, kneepads, forearm guards, and a bicycle helmet; his carpenter’s jeans had a pair of wrenches and a sledgehammer tucked through its loops, and he held a second wrench--at least as long as his forearm--casually at his side.  
“Kisaragi, what the _hell_ are you doing?!” Kengo stormed to where the other boy could see him.  
“Yuuki said you’d be here, so I figured you could use backup.”  
“I’m not fighting, and neither are--”  
“Why not?” the remark left Kengo’s mouth agape, “If we’re gonna rescue people, then--”  
“Then we take them and _run_.” Kengo snapped, “Trying to fight them would be--”

He froze as a presence tickled the back of his mind--several shadows were headed in their direction.  
“We need to get going.”  
“It hasn’t been that long--”  
“Shadows. They’re coming.” Kengo led the way through the labyrinth, taking any route that didn’t seem to have an enemy using it, but the monsters weren’t wandering haphazardly the way they usually did; given that they had ignored Kengo until the two boys met up, it was as if they were picking up Gentarou’s signal and aggressively coming after him. Kengo cursed Yuuki again for sending her enemy-magnet of a friend into the TV, despite it being impossible for her to have known what would happen--and that they would have inevitably discovered this problem when they went to rescue the new victim.

A brisk walk changed to a sprint as route after route was blocked off, until Kengo’s body gave up, forcing him to stop and catch his breath.  
“Hey, Kengo, I think we’ve been here befo--”  
“I know that!” he snapped between gasps for air; at this rate, they would become surrounded, and the odds of both them getting to an exit point _and_ Kengo opening the escape to the outside of the TV in time was--

Kengo tensed as his mental radar started screaming at him; he whirled around to find a shadow materializing from the floor.  
“Shit--!” he hissed, searching for an open route. Gentarou was less fazed, stepping forward casually.  
“Hmm…..that one’s kinda little, isn’t he?”  
“Size doesn’t mean anyth--” Kengo’s ability to speak vanished as Gentarou rushed the shadow, pulling back one leg and punting the blobby creature with it. It was knocked a meter away, but was otherwise unaffected; it began to swell and change, transforming into a basketball-sized sphere with little more than a mouth and tongue and colored like something from a circus.  
“That’s--” Gentarou sputtered, “that is _so_ gross.”

“Kisaragi--!” Kengo had located another path and was trying to wave the other human over, but Gentarou was completely ignoring him. Instead, he had brought his large wrench up like a baseball bat, ready to strike, and was eyeing his opponent. “You can’t fight that thing!”  
“It’s okay…”  
“ _Kisaragi!_ ” Kengo spat the name like a swear; the shadow charged, and Gentarou swung the wrench into it for a direct hit.  
“Yeah! Home run!” he hollered. The shadow was briefly stunned, but once again recovered, “--Orrrrrrr not.” Kengo sighed, resigning to the fact that Kisaragi would either pull off a miracle, or get them both killed, but was most definitely not going to listen to reason.

Gentarou rushed his opponent this time, but the shadow dodged; he tried again, only to get the same result. The enemy responded by lashing out with its tongue, knocking him over. Gentarou’s earlier evaluation of it seemed to be right, Kengo noted, as the other boy brushed himself off easily after the attack. Gentarou frowned, then cocked his head slightly, as if hearing something inaudible to Kengo. His frown deepened to one of frustration, then once again he initiated the unthinkable--in the middle of combat, with the shadow approaching, Gentarou tucked the wrench into his belt, brought his left fist in front of his chest, and shut his eyes.

“Three…” Gentarou muttered to himself.

A tickle in the back of his mind told Kengo not to interfere, even though the rest of him was screeching to physically drag Kisaragi to an exit. He could only watch as Gentarou clenched and unclenched his right hand at his side.

“Two…” he brought his fist to the side of his waist, “One…”

Gentarou’s eyes snapped open, a wild look on his face; he thrust his hand upwards, reaching for something nonexistent above his head.  
“PERSONA!” in an instant, a sapphire flame swirled to life over his palm, forming what looked like a card. It shattered like glass when Gentarou seized it, and a mechanical creature materialized above him. It had a--warped--human shape; thin, disproportionately long, metal-framework arms ended in wide hands with rusted claws, its legs tapered into needle-like points instead of feet, and its head was only a frame with a doll-like mask for a face, part of which had broken off and taken half of an eye with it. A skeletal wing protruded from its left arm, scorched, with shredded patches of canvas still clinging to the more intact areas; the wing on its other arm was a literally twisted version of its counterpart, its mangled edges still burning in places.

The summoned creature rushed the shadow, slashing with its ragged wing; it had considerably more success than Gentarou, ripping open a gash in its opponent's flesh, which spewed dark mist until the creature finished it off with its claws.  
"Yeah!!!" Gentarou whooped as the shadow completely disintegrated; the metal fighter didn't so much as look at the humans before dissolving into fog.  
"What...?" Kengo muttered as he approached Gentarou--and where the shadow had been, "what was _that_...?"

Gentarou seemed to have forgotten Kengo, as he jumped slightly at the other boy's voice.  
"Ah, er... it's a little... hard to explain?"  
"People going into TVs is hard to explain." Kengo replied dryly. Gentarou sighed.  
"Lately, a voice in my head tells me I can do things I shouldn't be able to?" He glanced at Kengo for a signal to stop talking, but his comrade only continued to stare at him. "Oh come on--how can you tell where shadows are?"  
"Alright, fine." Kengo looked away uneasily, "but what _was_ that thing?"  
"It's a persona." Gentarou stated as if it was common knowledge. Kengo gave up on a coherent answer and sighed in response.  
“Let’s just get out of here.”  
“So….my place this time?”  
“What?” Kengo had to take a moment to process Gentarou’s chain of logic, “No! We’re leaving through the first TV I find.” he strode toward an open path--with any luck, it would stay that way.

“Hey. Kengo.”  
“What.” he snapped and glanced back; Gentarou’s smile was barely at the edges of his mouth, overshadowed by the intensity of his gaze.  
“Don’t worry about the shadows.” When Kengo didn’t manage to reply, he added a reassuringly confident nod.  
“Alright.” if nothing else, seeing Gentarou in combat more would give him a better sense of which shadows could be fought; Kengo still chose a sparsely-populated route, just in case.

A couple giant mouths later, Gentarou decided to take point, handing off his sledgehammer to Kengo. The shadows moved about as quickly as could be expected for blobs of goo, so Kengo wasn’t too worried about Gentarou stepping on one before he saw it.  
“I’m starting to wonder if I even need a persona for these things…” Gentarou muttered as an old-fashioned scale formed from the sludge he was prodding with one foot. The shadow suddenly glowed; Kengo’s radar reacted violently, but not soon enough to warn Gentarou--Kengo had barely opened his mouth when the other boy took a direct blast of fire to the chest.

Gentarou was knocked to the ground with a yelp, but unlike his encounters with the mouth-shadows, he didn’t spring back up after the attack. He staggered to his feet at an unusually slow pace; Kengo was still processing what had happened when his radar flared up a second time. Again, it was too late--the shadow caught Gentarou with another explosion; his cry of pain as he went crashing to the ground made Kengo shiver. The closest TV exit was too far away, and it was painfully apparent that Gentarou wouldn’t be able to break this fire-induced cycle, so Kengo did the only thing he could.

He ran.

_Towards_ the shadow.

With a shout, he brought the sledgehammer down on the scale; the shadow didn’t budge, but he certainly had caught its attention, as a burst of frigid air pushed him away and made his skin sting. He could see his breath in front of him as he readied his weapon again and charged, swinging the hammer like a golf club this time; his aim was off, and he briefly registered that he had caught only air before being blasted with the same fire that had debilitated Gentarou. Strangely, it didn’t hurt any more than the ice, but his body decided it had taken enough damage, dropping Kengo to one knee.

“Neko Shogun!”

Kengo heard another card shatter, and what had to be a second persona tackled the scale. It was smaller, roughly waist-high, like its opponent; as it grappled the shadow, gnawing on one of its arms, he finally got a decent look at it. Neko Shogun was….a cat that stood on two legs… and was dressed in feudal-age Japanese armor. Kengo really wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but at least it seemed effective; the persona ripped its opponent into parts with a particular shade of vigor, dissipating when the shadow was gone.

"You saved me there."

Kengo turned his gaze up to Gentarou; he was barely on his feet from the looks of it, but was holding out a hand anyway. Kengo accepted the help up, but stood with his own power, rather than risk dragging the other boy to the ground.  
"Are you okay?"  
Gentarou shook his head, "I don't think....I mean, that was just..."  
"Is it related to your persona...?" Kengo mused; Gentarou frowned. "I got hit with the fire, too, but you're a lot worse off." Gentarou mulled the statement over.  
"You think it's related to Icarus....?"  
"Ica-- _that's_ its name?!" Kengo grimaced; more so when Gentarou nodded, "oh for--stay away from fire!"  
"I didn't know it could do that..." the other boy protested weakly.  
"And I didn't know you had two personas. Any others I should know about?"  
Gentarou shook his head again, "No, but, well--"  
“Let me guess, 'it's hard to explain'."  
Gentarou nodded wearily this time, "how close is an exit?"

Kengo glanced over the other boy; his exposed skin was already turning an angry red in patches--the area on his chest was almost certainly blistering. Yet, he was sure that if another shadow appeared, Gentarou would take the frontal position without pause. Kengo redirected his focus to his radar.  
"Your house is nearby--"  
"Where I came in?"  
Kengo narrowed his eyes, "yeah."  
"Yuuki's place..." Gentarou murmured; for a moment, Kengo wondered if he was going to have to haul an unconscious Gentarou out of the TV a second time. He headed for a nearby path, making a mental note to ask about the other boy's TV arrangement later.  
"Let's go--it's clear right now."

\---

"Gen-chan! ....Kengo-kun--?"

With a moan, the two boys had been deposited on Yuuki's bedroom floor; the moment her childhood friend rolled onto his back, eyes closed, Yuuki's voice went from confusion to alarm.  
"Gen-chan?! What--"  
"Do you have any burn cream?" Kengo cut her off; she stared at him momentarily with wide eyes, then sprinted out of the room. Gentarou didn't move from the floor, so Kengo got up and searched the room for a pair of scissors; Gentarou's shirt had literally been toasted, anyway.

He had just finished cutting off the shirt when Yuuki returned with not one, but _two_ first aid kits, a box of general bandages, several gauze rolls--the kind that come with the kits and never seem to get used--and what seemed to be seven different kinds of ointment or cream, all perched precariously in her arms. She took a seat next to Gentarou as Kengo pulled the scraps of shirt back and breathed a sigh of relief; they wouldn't need to bring Gentarou to the hospital, at least. His chest looked like it had had scalding water thrown on it, but was nowhere near as burned as Kengo had feared.

"Well, doctor? Am I gonna die?" Gentarou muttered, eyes still shut.  
"Idiot." Kengo snorted, pouring one of the ointments haphazardly on his ally's chest.  
"What happened...?" Yuuki finally asked.  
"Your friend is a freaking shadow magnet."  
"Eh?" Gentarou opened his eyes to gawk at Kengo.  
"They were coming after you like kids to candy." Kengo decided he had soaked Gentarou's wounds enough and set the bottle down; Yuuki took it as a signal to start mummifying her friend. "We found out that we can fight them, though," Kengo added quietly, then blinked in surprise at his own statement. That even _he_ had assaulted a shadow began to sink in.

“We….” he murmured to himself, unfocused eyes seeming to gaze into the other world, “We can _fight_.” Gentarou’s chuckle jolted him back.  
“I told you, didn’t I? Just leave the shadows to me!” he jabbed his thumb into his chest and immediately winced; Kengo rolled his eyes in response.  
“Don’t spout that kind of crap while you’re injured.”  
“I’m fi-----ne!” Gentarou sat up energetically, his usual expression returning, “I’ll eat a lot and sleep a lot and I’ll be better than ever in a day!”

Kengo opened his mouth to retort, but caught a glimpse of Yuuki’s expression and the way she was eyeing her friend’s burns.  
“Alright, alright. It’s not that bad, anyway, it won’t even scar.” Gentarou’s grin widened, and for a second, Kengo wondered if he had accidentally caught on to the other boy’s intentions.  
“Now that that’s settled--” Gentarou sprung to his feet with more vigor than necessary, “--you can come crash at my place!”  
“I don’t live that far--”  
“You shouldn’t go out alone, Kengo.” Yuuki cut in, “and your house _is_ far.”   
Kengo frowned at her; she nodded confidently in response.  
“See? C’mon.” Gentarou grabbed Kengo by the wrist and dragged him away, waving energetically to Yuuki with the other hand; his volume dropped drastically once her bedroom door was opened, “Get some sleep, okay? We’re gonna be busy tomorrow!”  
“Be careful going home--!” Yuuki whispered back with a smile, reassured on her friend’s condition.

Gentarou didn’t slow down until they were out of sight of the house, letting go of Kengo’s arm and crouching down.  
“Sorry, I just need to….a little…” the weariness Kengo had heard in the TV returned to his voice.  
“Are you really okay?”  
“Yeah.” the response was confident enough to probably be honest. “But it’s like….I dunno, like there’s something in the fog. And then I screwed up and took those hits….”  
“Take your time.” Kengo put a swift end to Gentarou’s attempts at an explanation, “I’d offer to carry you, but I don’t think your chest would like that.”  
“Mmn.” Gentarou nodded a bit, “it’s not far, anyway….’s not….” he trailed off, shook his head, and wobbled to his feet. “...I’m good.”

Kengo sighed, lifted Gentarou’s arm across his shoulders and wrapped his hand around the other boy’s waist.  
“Idiot.” he used the word softly; in his peripheral vision, Gentarou smiled a little before letting Kengo take on some of his weight.

\---

As Kengo’s companions had said, it wasn’t long before Gentarou was fumbling his house keys into the lock.  
“Don’t worry, Gramps is a heavy sleeper.”  
Kengo responded with a quiet grunt; he’d be more inclined to believe Gentarou if he wasn’t whispering. The other boy guided Kengo through the dark house with ease, and it wasn’t until they were in Gentarou’s room and the light on that Kengo remembered he had only been living here for a couple weeks.

“Everything’s still in boxes, but….ah…” Gentarou rummaged through his closet, finally finding a futon and trying to haul it out of its container by force.  
“Oh, sit down.” Kengo took over the responsibility of wrestling tightly-packed objects free as Gentarou made himself comfortable on the other futon, “if you have energy, explain what you mentioned earlier.”  
“....Neko Shogun?”  
“The thing about the fog.”  
“Oh.” Gentarou blinked a few times, “You’re not tired?”  
“Nope.” Kengo could practically hear the ‘Weirrrrrrd’ in the other boy’s thoughts.  
“Not even a little...?”  
“Why else would I ask?”  
“Jeez…” Gentarou stifled a yawn. “Well… your guess ‘s as good ‘s mine….” he slurred, letting his head rest on his arms. Kengo glanced over; Gentarou was losing any resemblance of a fight to keep his eyes open--he had at least removed the helmet, but the odds of him getting changed out of the rest of his battle gear were slim.

“Alright, then.” Kengo murmured as he tossed the futon haphazardly onto the floor and clambered into his borrowed bedding, “we’ll worry about it later.” he turned for one last glimpse of his companion; Gentarou had gone down for the count, “...get some rest, you worked hard today.” He closed his eyes and adjusted himself into the most comfortable position.

"Mmnh, you too..."

Wide-eyed, Kengo was still formulating how to respond when Gentaro let out a quiet snore. Kengo let himself smile a little and went to sleep.

\---

Kengo was the first one awake the next morning. He needed to get back to his apartment to get dressed; leaving unannounced seemed rude, but waking Gentarou after last night would be selfish. Kengo finally chose to put his futon away silently to procrastinate a decision.  
"Morning...." Gentarou slurred from behind him as Kengo tried to wrestle his bed back into the closet. "Eh? You're leaving?"  
"Didn't mean to wake you." With a final shove, he accomplished his task, "I need to get my uniform from my apartment--"  
"Just use mine."

"Oosugi would be all over me the moment I stepped on the grounds." Kengo scoffed, "I don't even know what school that uniform is from--"  
"No no no no--" Gentarou clambered out of bed and yanked open a dresser, "--not that one. Ha!" He victoriously pulled out an Amanogawa uniform.  
"Wha--you--" Kengo gawked, "how long have you had _that_?!"  
"Erm, well... since I got signed up here?" A sheepish grin played at the corners of Gentarou's mouth. Kengo shook his head, stifling his amusement at the extent of Gentarou's clothing stunt.  
"So all this time Oosugi's been on your case--" Gentarou didn't even wait for the rest of the question.  
"Yyyyyyup." His smile widened to its usual brilliance.  
"Jeez, Kisaragi," Kengo reflected a bit of the other boy's expression back at him as he accepted the uniform, then added in his best impression of their teacher, "You really are a trou-ble-ma-ker--!"  
Gentarou snickered, rummaging for his own clothes.

"So, what's the plan? TV after school?"  
"No... you should take the day off, figure out who the girl on the Midnight Channel was--it's better if she _isn't_ thrown into the TV to begin with."  
"What about you?"  
"I'll scout out the new section, find a close access point--with how much the fog drains you, we don't want to be running in circles beforehand if we have to fight her shadow."

Gentarou mulled the idea over.  
"On one condition." His mirth dropped and he held Kengo down with a serious gaze, "if you even _think_ the shadows are coming after you--" Kengo held up one hand to stop him.  
"I'll make sure to grab you. Don't worry."  
"Alright." Gentarou's smile returned, warm and relaxed.


	5. Chapter 5

Kengo had just finished getting his tray of lunch at the cafeteria; he scanned the crowd for Yuuki or Gentarou, briefly wondering how many new friends the latter had reeled into sitting with him _this_ time. Not spotting them immediately, Kengo began to wander through the tables; posters plastered the walls and pillars of the dining area--some event was gearing up, apparently. He checked one as he walked by; the Queen’s Festival--definitely not applicable to him.  
“Ah! Sempai, you can’t sit there!” Kengo ignored the voice behind him as he passed the speaker’s table--at least, until the listener responded.  
“Eh? Is it broken or something?”

Kengo grimaced internally-- _Gentarou_.

Kengo turned to his ally’s ill-chosen seat; even he knew immediately what was wrong with his seating choice.  
“It’s the _Queen_ ’s table!” a wide-eyed underclassman--the earlier speaker--firmly pressed, “she’s not so bad, but her boyfriend--”  
“Oops!” a girl’s voice cut off the first-year boy, “someone left some _trash_ at our table.” Kengo recognized her--everyone in the school would, actually--Miu Kazashiro, self-proclaimed queen of the school. Even worse, most of the students actually went along with that title.

“‘Trash’?” Gentarou scowled, “I’m not trash, I’m Gentarou Kisa--” Kengo started to step forward to drag Gentarou off, but the little first-year beat him to it.  
“He’s the transfer student that’s leaving ri~ght now.” the boy was already steering his confused upperclassman away by the shoulders.  
“Eh?” Gentarou protested, but was still letting himself get pushed, “I’m not done yet--! Hey-----!” Kengo rubbed his forehead and sighed, left his lunch in the closest open spot, then went after them.

\---

Kengo found the two boys in the nearby hallway; the younger one was exasperatedly trying to impart social survival skills to his elder. As they hadn’t noticed him, and he wasn’t the one dealing with the frustratingly straightforward Gentarou, Kengo decided to watch the play unfold a bit from behind a corner.  
“--and that’s why you can’t simply _sit_ there--!”  
“So if I want to be friends, I should just go talk to her?”  
“Are you _nuts_?! Her boyfriend’ll kick your ass!”  
“...Not if I’m friends with him, too.”  
“Dude.” Kengo wasn’t sure how the first-year’s eyes kept getting bigger, but Kisaragi seemed able to make it happen, “They wouldn’t even give you the time of day if you _begged_ for it.” Gentarou tilted his head and eyed the other boy, as if trying to see how his companion couldn’t comprehend the power of friendship, but he seemed to have caught that protesting wouldn’t change the first-year’s mind.

“Kisaragi,” Kengo decided to spare the kid any more of this cycle and stepped into the hall, “What was all _that_?” he jerked his thumb back to the cafeteria. Gentarou didn’t even hesitate in his response.  
“I decided that I’ll befriend the queen of the school.” Kengo fought to keep his face neutral; the first-year was making such a theatrically exasperated expression that it was hard not to laugh. He would be fun to mess with a little; Kengo decided to play dumb--a Kisaragi level of dumb.  
“Ah, is that so.” sure enough, the kid's horrified look managed to double. Kengo turned his gaze to him, “And who are you, anyway?”  
“That--” the boy instantly recovered his composure; Kengo noticed that he talked with an oddly high amount of hand gestures. “You can call me JK.” At the name--what _had_ to be a nickname--he even struck a pose with his hands forming the letters. Kengo wondered how long he had practiced in front of a mirror in his room for _that_.  
“First year, right?” He took a casual swipe at JK's ego and was rewarded with a cringe, “I’ll take that as a yes. What do you know about the Midnight Channel?”

“The Midnight….”JK’s expression transitioned from grimace to disdain and back, “you _haven’t_ heard of it, Sempai?”  
“Of course I have.” Kengo snapped, “I want to know if you’ve heard anything weird, or anything about people going missing--that kind of thing.” JK idly picked at his lip and drank in Kengo’s appearance with fascinated eyes.  
“....you think they’re related.”  
“I never said that.”  
“Between you and me…” a mischievous smile spread across his face, “Every person that I’ve heard was on the Midnight Channel, well…. the next time I hear about them, they’re--” with a flourish of the wrist, he pointed at the ceiling.  
“So you don’t know anything else.” Kengo sighed dramatically, then dug in spitefully, in case the kid was withholding something, “And here I thought you might be more than the _average gossip_. Let’s go, Kisaragi.” He stepped forward and steered Gentarou away by the elbow.  
“Eh?”  
“Shh.” Kengo made the noise just above a normal breath--Gentarou heard it for what it was, but JK wouldn’t.

“Wait!” The first-year called after them, “There’s one more thing, Sempai.” Kengo stopped and turned back to the boy casually.  
“What.”  
“There was a party that night, and an exam the next day, so everyone was either out or sleeping when it came on, but--” JK tilted his head to indicate Gentarou, “--your friend was on the Midnight Channel.”  
"Who saw him? Because in case you didn't notice, he's not hanging from a TV antenna." JK's smile didn't slip, but he glanced away, fiddling with a strand of hair.  
"Ah, well, you know how these things work--a friend of a friend and all that." He rubbed at the back of his neck, "but... my sources are reliable--you should keep an eye on him. I wouldn't want to see him wind up like the others." Kengo frowned; shifting eye contact aside, that sounded like a threat. Maybe he was being too sensitive about it--Yuuki had connected the Midnight Channel with the murders just as easily, after all. Even so...

“JK!” the boy glanced over when Gentarou said his name, “Thanks, but I’m per----fectly okay!” Gentarou flexed a less-than-impressive bicep to emphasize his point. JK giggled impishly, although Kengo had to grit his teeth to keep from commenting under his breath about a certain someone's fresh burns.  
“Alright then, Sempai!” JK fluidly turned a wrist-twirl into a wave as he left.  
"JK, huh..." Gentarou murmured; Kengo decided that asking wasn't worth the trouble--he still had food to--

His knee crumpled at the first step, and an acute migraine stabbed him right in his sense of balance; if Gentarou hadn't grabbed and supported him, Kengo would have certainly hit the floor.

"Kengo! Kengo, what's wrong?!"

"Mmnh..." It took a moment to form words; the lights were too bright and he was still sorting out how to use legs, explaining was simply impossible. "I'm...fine." a small part of him remembered the other boy's injuries, and he eased himself to the floor, keeping his weight to himself as much as he could manage. He slowly realized Gentarou hadn't been pestering him with fruitless questions; Kengo peeled his eyes open again--and found himself caught in an unexpectedly intense stare. Gentarou was drinking in every detail of his body and scrutinizing it for a potential injury or disease--or any sign that he might suddenly take a turn for the worse. Kengo's confused expression must have been reassuring, as Gentarou eased off a bit after a few seconds.

Kengo took a deep breath and let it out; explanation time would be now, apparently--his condition was still actively being evaluated, and he couldn't foresee Gentarou dropping his surveillance any time soon.

"I'm alright now....really." Kengo stood tentatively, "you haven't eaten either, right?" he indicated the cafeteria with a nod and without waiting for a response, headed back in. He took a seat where he had left his tray--luckily he had opted for a sandwich, so its temperature didn't matter--and waited for Gentarou to find his food and return. Even though it was unnecessary, Kengo glanced up when a tray was placed across from his; Gentarou still had that uncharacteristically sharp stare fixed on Kengo. Another person parked their food next to Gentarou's; Yuuki must have spotted her friend and joined him.

Kengo had apparently stalled too long on Yuuki's concerned expression; when he glanced back at her friend, Gentarou’s focus had increased again. Kengo grimaced slightly--he was _clearly_ back to normal, right?  
"I really am fine, you know...!"  
"Did something happen?" Yuuki scowled; she looked that worried, even though Gentarou _hadn't_ told her?  
"It was just a migraine." the other boy looked ready to interrupt; so Kengo quickly added, "a bad one."  
" _Kengo_..." Gentarou used the name quietly, but with an unmistakable force to it that conveyed what he wasn't saying.

_You fell, Kengo._

"That's what it was." He held fast with the same force, "I've gotten checked for it, I'm not going to die suddenly or anything."  
"And if we're in the middle of dealing with a shadow?"  
"They don't happen 'there'." Gentarou's eyes narrowed; Yuuki looked like she believed Kengo's words, but trusted her friend's instincts.  
"Oh! What if it has to do with Kengo's--" unable to come up with a decent word substitute, she held her hands by her temples and pointed at the ceiling. Kengo couldn't stifle his incredulous expression; she took it as a signal to wiggle her index fingers a couple times. Even so, it convinced Gentarou more than Kengo's protests had.

"Hrmnn... I guess..." he turned back to Kengo, still visibly doubtful, "oh... does the word 'arcana' mean anything to you?"  
"What?"  
"Like...tarot cards?" the two boys turned to Yuuki in surprise, "ah, it's just, that's the only time I've heard it, so..."  
“Tarot?”  
“Yeah….Fool, Star, Moon, Magician…..um…..Earth? No, wait, that wasn’t--”  
“That’s it…” Gentarou muttered; Kengo glanced over and caught him looking at Yuuki in awe.  
“Anyway...” Kengo cut in once his food was mostly gone, “Any idea how many candidates we have to keep an eye on?”  
“They eat together, so…” Yuuki nodded at a table behind Kengo; he turned and examined the group as naturally as he could manage; ponytail, ponytail, short ha--no, that was another ponytail--several wore their hair down, and then one--one had short hair.  
“Of all the people….” he grimaced and went back to his food; he recognized the next victim--anyone in the school would, actually.

Miu Kazushiro, self-proclaimed queen and the next victim of the TV.


	6. Chapter 6

The trio split up after school, with Yuuki and Gentarou in charge of tailing Miu. Kengo stepped into the TV after they left, strolling out of the studio region with its catwalks. At Gentarou's insistence, he had brought a broken broom handle from the storage room, but just as Kengo predicted, the shadows had absolutely no interest in him.

Kengo avoided them at first, but the more detours he took, the stronger his curiosity became. Finally, it won over his caution; he ignored a small shadow and took the route it was occupying. When it didn't react to his presence, he did the same with the next shadow he found--and every shadow after.

"It really _is_ Kisaragi..." he muttered as he walked within arm’s reach of a particularly large blob. A few shadows later, he was paying them about as much attention as another human walking along the same street, his focus was on something more useful--locating Miu’s mini-world in case the plan to guard her failed.

Kengo grit his teeth as he passed a familiar dungeon; he hadn’t known its owner--not even her name. Her copy was still human when he arrived, but she was already frantically trying to escape. She wasn’t fast enough. He still didn’t have a clue what it had said to her. But in the second her shadow knocked her to the floor, she had spotted him. Her expression as Kengo turned to retreat had scalded itself into his memory.

The premeditative search was probably a futile effort, given that the metal catwalks that headed away from the entrance stage connected hundreds--if not thousands--of dungeons. Nowhere near that number of people had entered the TV, of course, but theoretically, at least, he could locate the area he needed. Still, it wasn’t like the place would have a neon sign over the--

Kengo took three whole steps to process what he had just walked past. Up a few steps to a cement plateau, across it, and up a few more steps was a rather tasteful building with rough-textured walls made of concrete blocks and maroon accents. The entrance was mostly glass--four pairs of glass doors took up most of the lower half--and inside was a lobby and a ticket booth. On either side of the booth was a wooden door; one had been propped open, and hosted a familiar red-and-black portal.

Outside the building, on the pair of show boards attached to the building and the three around or on the cement plateau, were what made Kengo back up and give the place a closer examination; identical leaflets were plastered over the boards--over each other--advertising, of all things, the Queen’s Festival. They were the same as the posters in the school’s cafeteria, halls, classrooms, doors, and the occasional bullying victim--Miu was literally on signs outside the dungeon. Well, with one key difference.

Kengo stepped up to a board and tried to peel one of the smaller papers off to bring back with him; after a few attempts on different hand-sized pages, he managed to get an identifiable piece--the rest was content to stayed glued in place, tearing the page in half. He drank in the leaflet’s unnerving appearance one last time before folding it up and pocketing it; like its comrades, Miu’s face had been completely destroyed.

Whoever--whatever--had destroyed the posters was creative--Kengo had to admit that much, at least. No two seemed to have been attacked with the same method--scribbled out with permanent marker, burnt, cut out completely, sliced repeatedly in every direction, painstakingly stabbed thousands of times with a ballpoint pen--the damage ranged from Miu’s eyes to her entire silhouette. Kengo eyed them disdainfully as he passed, entering the building, and finally, the portal.

The inside of the building felt like it was in a competition with the outside; the walls and ceiling had been painted black--as had the wooden beams and framework that periodically lined the hall--and had even more of the posters stuck to them. The floor was wooden and had more of the creepy, crime-scene-style human outlines as the studio portion of the TV.

Kengo awkwardly propped his makeshift weapon in the crook of an elbow and pulled his notebook and pen out of his bag, taking careful notes of steps taken, turns, and where they led. Every now and then, Kengo came across a black curtain; they opened into rather empty storage rooms--everything had been pushed to the walls, leaving most of the room unused. The piles of things were a mix of shelving and stage props, with the occasional painted scenery or furniture tossed in. Kengo didn’t bother with a souvenir this time-- _if_ he could dislodge something, he was fairly certain gravity would undo the rest on top of him.

His radar pinged as a shadow oozed around the corner in front of him; he ignored it--until it picked up speed, making a clear line to Kengo. He froze--why did the shadows react to him _now_?!--then turned and sprinted for the entrance. He swung his broom handle blindly to keep his pursuer back as he slowed to turn corners, then bolted through the final stretch and dived into the exit with a complete lack of finesse.

He grit his teeth as he landed harshly on the other side, the cement shredding his borrowed uniform, knee, and the arm he held out to break his fall. He stayed on the ground for a moment and caught his breath, head protesting his radar’s rapid shift back to this side of the portal. Eventually he forced himself to his feet, limping back to the school’s TV exit while using his weapon as a walking stick.

\---

The best excuse Kengo could come up with was that he had been roughhousing with some of his friends--it didn’t seem to convince the nurse, but it had a marginal advantage over claiming to have taken a tumble down some stairs. After a few text messages to Miu’s surveillance duo and the nurse asking him--for the third time--if he was being picked on, Yuuki arrived to rescue him.

Yuuki acted like she had been present for Kengo’s injury, but the moment they were out of earshot, she was just as wide-eyed as the nurse, glancing over Kengo’s condition several times.  
“What happened?!” Kengo turned over several answers before responding.  
“I tripped.” Yuuki glared severely at him, “A shadow in the new area came after me--” he cut off Yuuki’s protests before they made it up her throat, “--I didn’t fight, but my exit from the dungeon was clumsy and I had a bad landing as a result.”

Once Yuuki had visibly relaxed, he turned the conversation to her side.  
"How's Miu?"  
Yuuki didn't respond insomuch as grimace dramatically and avoid eye contact.  
"She was kidnapped already?!" Kengo hissed; Yuuki vigorously shook her head no.  
"That's...well...she's fine, but....how to say...."  
"...I'm sure I'll find out when we get there." He huffed. Yuuki hesitated, then nodded reluctantly.

\---

As Yuuki led him through some hedges and onto what could only be Miu's family's private property, Kengo had to repeat to himself that tailing Miu was for _her_ sake, and that they weren't stalking her. Literally, sure, but for selfless reasons.

He just hoped he wouldn't have to explain that any time soon.

They spotted Gentarou sitting next to the building ahead of them; Kengo could smell chlorine and hear Miu chattering with a couple other girls. They were enjoying the pool--or at least, Kengo couldn’t explain any other way why Gentarou's face was flushed, or why he was _listening_ to Miu more than actually watching her. When they got close enough for the boys to evaluate the other's appearance, Kengo’s attention was snagged by the girls’ conversation.  
"I can’t even read this letter--did they scrawl it out between classes? Who seriously thinks this is gift material?!"  
"Hey, are these cookies the ones from home ec the other week?"  
"Eww--how forgetful do they think I am?"  
"They taste fine, though..."  
"Jun, don't eat those! What if they've gone bad?"

"Have they been like this the whole time...?" Kengo murmured to his allies; Yuuki avoided eye contact and the other boy’s jaw was set too tight to respond, "I'll take over, you two go home and--"  
Gentarou shook his head, "I'll stay. You need a break more than us."  
“Ah…About the uniform, I--”  
“Are _you_ okay?”  
“Yeah--” Gentarou cut off any “but”s with a firm hand wave; Kengo closed his mouth and took a seat next to the other boy, with Yuuki following suit. Further conversation was cut off by sounds from the pool.

“Hey, what time is--ehh?! It’s this late already?! My parents--”  
“Calm down, Jun.” Miu cut her off firmly, “Get changed and call them. Tamae, you should head home as well; I’ll tell someone to ready the car.” the scraping of deck chairs on concrete, and the three girls entered the house.

“...Should be fine.” Kengo muttered.  
“What?”  
“I don’t know if Miu is going with them, but we can’t follow them if they’re in a car.”  
“Then…”  
“ ‘Then’ nothing.” Kengo emphasized over Gentarou, “if Miu goes, she’s in a _car_. The culprit will be hard-pressed to put her in a TV while she’s in a moving vehicle. And if someone shows up at her house, we’ll know.”  
“What…” Yuuki began tentatively, “what if it’s one of her friends?”  
“The victim? But the Midnight Channel already--”  
“The culprit.”  
Kengo hesitated, “If it’s personal grudges, then why did they throw Kisaragi in?”  
Yuuki shook her head, “I don’t know, but…” the longer Kengo took to decipher her words, the more distressed she seemed.  
“But we have to suspect everyone, right?” Gentarou pressed gently, and was immediately rewarded by Yuuki’s energetic nod.  
“Yeah…” Kengo mused, “The driver will be with her, at least. We just have to hope it’s enough.”   
The trio let out a collective sigh.

"So what happened in the TV?"  
"Shadow. More importantly," Kengo pulled the poster piece out, "I found this." Gentarou took it gingerly and examined it.  
"This is..." Gentarou frowned and passed the page to Yuuki, who shuddered after a glance.  
"The whole place was covered in them."  
"...creepy. _Really_ creepy." she finished for her friend, "Whoever made that place really hates sempai." Gentarou's expression darkened, and while Kengo had the nagging feeling something was off about that statement, he couldn't think of a 'why'.

\---

Just to be safe, the trio watched Miu’s house overnight, and were rewarded for their efforts with sleep deprivation, late attendance, and a pop quiz in Geography class; the only suspicious people near Miu’s house were the three vigilantes, and the cheerleader left for school at the last minute, due to having the luxury of private, motorized transportation. Kengo feigned illness at the first opportunity, and spent the morning sleeping in the nurse’s office, having promised to meet the others at lunch.

When Kengo stepped into the cafeteria, it wasn’t deja vu that made him want to turn around and step back out; it was a carbon copy of the day before--the same little first-year was frantically trying to save the same guy from sitting at the same table. No longer amused, Kengo swiftly burned a path to his ally before Gentarou could blow what little cover they had.

“Sempai--!” By the time Kengo got within earshot, JK was frantically checking the room for Miu’s group, clearly planning a last-second escape for himself, “Come _on_ , Sempai--!”  
“ _Kisaragi_ ,” Kengo spat, “what are you _doing_?!” Gentarou met him with calm eyes.  
“I’m going to befriend Miu.”  
“No.” Kengo moved to pull Gentarou up by the arm, but he didn’t budge; JK even helped by pushing him from the back, but was just as successful.  
“Dammit, Kisaragi, _move_ or you’ll screw this up.” Kengo hissed.  
“If she’s my friend, then--”  
“You’re not _thinking_!”  
“I already thought about it.” Before Kengo could respond, JK spotted Miu’s group and abandoned his efforts; Kengo grit his teeth and did the same--if he was lucky, he and Yuuki could still keep an eye on Miu, even if she was wary of Gentarou.

“I thought the school had janitors for this.” the students around the table hadn’t seemed to be watching, but Miu’s comment sent a snicker through the crowd.  
“And that attitude is why I decided we should be friends.” Miu smiled in response--and let the other students laugh for her.  
“ _Really_ , now?”  
“Yeah.” If Gentarou noticed the dripping disdain, he put on a convincing act otherwise; he stood and offered Miu a handshake that made the onlookers chuckle again.  
“We’re at school, so I’ll _teach_ you something,” Miu spoke slowly and crisply to let Gentarou know his place as an incompetent toddler, “ _Queens_ don’t make friends with _peasants_.”

Kengo couldn’t bring himself to watch any longer; had Miu been born with a knife for a tongue, or was it a special class the school offered to the popular kids? Either way, Gentarou rebounded with a speed that brought Kengo’s eyes back to the social trainwreck.  
“So if you _weren’t_ a queen--”  
“ _Sure_.” Miu was stifling laughter, “If I somehow _lose_ the Queen Festival, I’ll be your friend. But if I win, you never show your face in front of me again.”  
“Deal.” Gentarou grinned at her and vacated the table.

Their entertainment gone, the students went back to their own conversations, and Kengo took the chance to locate Yuuki, sitting at their usual table. Unfortunately, Gentarou had registered that Kengo probably wanted nothing to do with him--and had sought out his childhood friend, too. Kengo hadn’t noticed her, but Yuuki had witnessed the earlier scene, according to the grimace on her face and the way her voice kept rising in pitch.  
“What are you going to do--?”  
“Eh? Ah, well…”  
“ _Gen-chan!_ She’s been the queen every year! She has a _fanclub_!”  
“If I enter the contest--”  
“ _Queen_ Festival! Girls _Only_!”  
“...Oh! If _you_ enter, then surely--”  
“It’s absolutely, completely impossible for me!”  
“But--”  
“No!”

“You’re a moron, Kisaragi.” Kengo cut in, “You said you put _thought_ into that?”  
“Kengo! You have some sort of idea, right?”  
“Sure--you stay out of this, and Joujima and I will keep watch on Miu.”  
“But what about the Queen Festival?”  
“She’s a third-year. You won’t have to hide for _that_ long.”  
“Kengo--!”  
“You set yourself up, Kisaragi. Figure it out yourself.” Gentarou let out a huff, but stopped protesting, “We have bigger issues--like who’s targeting her.”  
“Ehhhh…..It’s not you, Sempai?” Kengo jumped at the voice behind him, and the trio whirled to face an all-too-familiar first-year.

“What?” JK played with a strand of hair and frowned at their offended expressions, “Why would anyone take a bet like that if they weren’t rigging the competition?” Kengo shot a pointed glare at Gentarou; JK plunked himself down in the seat next to Kengo.  
“She might still lose!” Gentarou protested weakly. “JK, you must know someone that can beat her, right?”  
“Sempai--” the first-year sighed, “--nothing short of kidnapping could make her lose, and even _that’s_ through a technicality.”  
“Wait--you forfeit if you’re not there?” Gentarou leaned forward eagerly.  
“You can’t actually _kidnap_ her, Sempai!” JK hissed, “--but I _do_ know someone if you really--”  
“Shh-shh-shh _no_ , JK. That’s not--Kengo, you get it, right? Yuuki? Don’t look at me like that--the culprit, guys, the _culprit_.”  
“What?”  
“They want to win the Queen Festival.”  
“Kisaragi, don’t just use this to--”  
“I’m serious!”

“So...if we make her lose, the culprit won’t attack her…?” Yuuki mused.  
“Maybe, but…”  
“Did you guys miss the part where you would _literally_ have to _kidnap_ her?” JK cut in, “Even _if_ you could pull it off, you think she wouldn’t raise hell against you guys? She’s got money, connections--”  
“The TV!” Gentarou burst out suddenly; Kengo and Yuuki glared at him in synch, “The, uh--that contest, remember? With the, uh, thing?”  
“Yeah,” Kengo decided to stop him before he brought another person into the investigation group, “but we _can’t do that_. Even if we _did_ , Miu losing the Queen Festival is what the culprit wants.”  
“Sounds like you’re back at square one.” JK chimed in idly, earning a scowl from Kengo.  
“We know what the culprit is after, now. It’s just…” Yuuki began, “If we stop them, Gen-chan loses his bet.” The group turned toward the person in question; Gentarou blinked a few times as the facts sank in.  
“Are you sure we can’t just bring Miu into the--”  
“ _No_.” the second-years snapped in unison.

“We should use a variant of what we did yesterday.” Kengo pulled a hardcover notebook from his bag and began flipping through it, “Joujima and I will team up, and Kisaragi will go home and rest.”  
“I think it would be better to patrol.” Gentarou interjected.  
“We need two people for keeping watch, and I can’t patrol on my own, based on what happened before.”  
“But--”  
“It’s too dangerous to go in alone.” Kengo calmly stared Gentarou’s would-be suggestion out of existence. JK kept as quiet as possible, watching the impromptu strategy meeting. Pretending to be out of earshot was useless; based on the vague word choices, his upperclassmen were wary of him, anyway. That was fine--the longer they overestimated his intelligence, the larger his advantage.

“What if…” Yuuki began, “...what if it wasn’t two and one?”  
“Joujima, We only have three--”  
“If JK went with Yuuki….” Gentarou mused loud enough for Kengo’s mouth to stick open; his companions turned to the newcomer.  
“Ah, well--” JK tucked a strand of hair back and tried to restrain his excitement, but he could feel it creeping at the edges of his mouth, “--I don’t even know what you’re doing, you know?”  
“Doesn’t matter--” Kengo had regained his ability to speak, “--we don’t need to patrol, so--”  
“Erm, actually…” Yuuki pulled a folded paper from her bag and passed it to Kengo; she seemed to be suppressing her own eagerness, and whatever was on the note made the boy’s eyes widen.  
“When did you-- _how?_ ”  
“I picked it up from….before.” Gentarou answered sheepishly, “Yuuki’s good with her hands, so I thought…”  
“Even so--”  
“Honestly, Kengo? I’m okay with what I have right now, but you’re gonna need something better than a broom.”

Kengo took in Gentarou’s slight smile, then returned his attention to the note--and something in his hand. JK tilted his head casually to catch a glimpse, but Kengo pocketed it before he could make it out.  
“ ‘In case of fire’, is it?” he murmured and folded up the paper, “Alright, fine.” he fixed JK with eyes that contained anything other than trust, “you and Joujima are keeping an eye on Miu, so the culprit can’t attack her.”  
“A stakeout? What if they show up?”  
Kengo made a derisive noise as he got up and left.  
“We’re supposed to stop them.” Yuuki sighed.  
“And if it’s, like, Shun?”  
“You think it’s him?”  
“What? It’s just a question….”  
“Don’t worry, JK.” Gentarou smiled warmly at the younger boy, “Just leave the rest to us.”

\---

“Well?” Kengo inquired as he finished jotting down their recent enemy’s appearance and weaknesses in his little-used notebook. The trip with the persona-user had been smoother than his solo journey, especially with most of the shadows crumbling under Icarus’s wind attacks.  
“Well what?” Gentarou asked back, cheerfully wiping sweat and shadow goo off his face.  
“How’s your fatigue? Your injuries?”  
“I’m in top shape, don’t worry!”  
“And if Miu gets thrown in tonight, and we have to go through all this again?”  
Gentarou’s smile flickered; his breathing had been heavy through the last few fights.

“Thought so. We’ve mapped out enough dead ends, anyway--let’s head back.” Kengo started to leave, but glanced back when Gentarou’s footsteps didn’t follow; the other boy had his head cocked slightly, picking up on the squelching sounds of primordial shadow movement. “Kisaragi!”  
“We’re still missing stuff from the list….”  
“We can work on it la--will you _listen_ to me for once?!” he snapped as Gentarou sprinted toward yet another shadow. He still had his eyes closed to bring out a persona when his opponent took form; Kengo recognized it as a type they had fought earlier today, a robed shadow with two enormous hands fused with its body.

“Kisaragi-- _run!_ ” He charged after his ally, but was too late--Gentarou’s eyes snapped open and he reached for the sapphire card above him.  
“Neko Shogun!” the cat fired arcs of electricity into the shadow; the other creature cringed, then retaliated with a blast of wind in all directions. Kengo staggered back as tiny blades of air tore across his exposed skin, but Gentarou was knocked off his feet, landing in a crumple on the floor. Kengo caught the shadow’s attention with the splintered end of his broom, thrusting it repeatedly at his enemy’s side.  
“Go, I’ll be right behind you!” Kengo called as Gentarou painstakingly regained his footing; he heard the other boy’s footsteps headed away soon after, though he was certain Gentarou was glancing back for Kengo.

He took one more attack from the shadow--a blast of fire--before turning and running as well. Sure enough, Gentarou had stopped around the nearest corner to wait for Kengo; out of sight of the shadow, the two boys stole the chance to catch their breath.  
“Can we leave _now_?” Kengo grumbled pointedly; Gentarou let out a weak laugh and nodded. Kengo reevaluated the other boy’s condition and made a mental note for Neko Shogun’s page in the notebook; Gentarou had had a weak point hit--he was recovering too slowly for it to be the usual battle damage. He flipped to the map of the area he had been making; they had made quite a bit of progress, but that also meant quite a walk back.

\---

Yuuki was a rise-and-fall-with-the-sun kind of person. Humans were meant to be like that, anyway. That’s not to say she didn’t love watching the stars, but in the city, with so much light pollution--well, she might as well stick with one of the few stars she _could_ see, right? She leaned back in her hiding place by Miu’s fence and looked up at the sky; Dubhe, Benetnash, Alioth--she could see the Northern Dipper, at least, as well as Polaris, and--

She shook off the distraction and turned her eyes back to Earth. It was boring, though--Miu seemed to have gone to bed, and Yuuki wished once again that she could do the same. As if by fate, her phone buzzed just as she let out another sigh; at least JK had proven to be a more enjoyable nightwatch partner than Kengo--his constant bombardment of texting was about the only thing keeping her from using a rock as a pillow at this point. She flipped her phone open and silently mouthed the words as she read them.

“I’m taking a closer look.” Yuuki blinked blearily for a moment before frantically clicking the buttons of her phone.  
“Stay where you are??? What if she sees you????”  
“Something feels off.” a few seconds, then another text, “Don’t worry, I’m fast.”

She let out a breath as slowly as she could--turning her usual distressed whine into a Kengo-like sigh--and eyed Miu’s house, as if she could somehow see JK on the other side of the building. Her phone went off after a few minutes, and she almost dropped it while fumbling it open.  
“Miu’s gone wtf”  
“You’re sure???”  
“I’m checking, but…” a few more minutes, then, “where are you?”  
“The bushes by the pool.” Yuuki hit send, then sent as an afterthought, “Where we came in.”  
“K.”

Soon after she got his text, JK’s nearly-silent footsteps approached her location; she stuck a hand out and waved him over.  
“Oh? This place is pretty good.” he commented as he took a seat next to her.  
“And we can get out quick. Are you sure about Miu-sempai?”  
“Well--” JK drawled; even in the low light, Yuuki could see the way his eyes darted away, then around, expression twitching between eager gossip and perplexion.

“I checked every room with open curtains, and she wasn’t there--”  
“But then--” JK stopped her with sudden eye contact.  
“Nah, her room was _tossed_. Unless she got kidnapped to another part of her house, which makes no sense--though, I don’t know how they could have gotten her out since no one left since we got here, but--” Yuuki tuned his theories out and texted Kengo.  
“We don’t know how or who, but they got Miu...” His response was unexpectedly immediate.  
“Don’t tell Kisaragi.” Yuuki frowned at her phone until it buzzed a second time, “He pushed himself too much in the TV, he needs to recover.”  
“Will that be ok??? For Miu???”  
“She’ll be fine until it gets foggy. You and JK go home and sleep, if he asks you anything, lie or say you don’t know.”

“Mmnh...Kengo says we can go home.” Yuuki cut into the first-year’s ramblings, snapped her phone shut and got to her feet, “Where do you live?”  
“Sempai--” JK glanced up and down her with a grimace as they ducked out of the bushes and onto the sidewalk, “-- _You_ want to walk home _alone_ at _this_ time of night?”  
“You’re younger than me.” She gave him her best upperclassman huff; he deflected it with a grin.  
“Come on, I’m bored--” he whined, then avoided eye contact and fiddled with a loose strand of hair before glancing up at Yuuki again, “--pleeease.”  
“Fine,”  she conceded, if only to get to her bed faster.

For all his energetic texting, JK was quiet on the way to Yuuki’s house; she stifled a yawn and chalked it up to it being three in the morning. When they reached her doorstep, he waited politely on the sidewalk. She glanced back after unlocking the door and regretted it; JK was watching her with something of a mournful smile, and against the empty neighborhood, he looked so _small_ and--  
“Do you, um...would you like to maybe just sleep on my couch or something?”  
His smile brightened, “heh...you’re a pretty kind sempai, aren’t you? It’s fine, though, I live close.”  
“Okay….” JK turned and left; Yuuki watched him for a few seconds before opening the door and sneaking back to her bed.


	7. Backstage

“I haven’t seen Miu-sempai today.” The second Oosugi had been called out of the room by another teacher, Gentarou had turned in his seat, putting a hand over Kengo’s desk.   
“You  _ usually _ see her by second period?” Gentarou nodded, and Kengo bit back a grimace; he had hoped to at  _ least _ get to lunch before having to deal with this. “I’ll go check at the end of this class--if I’m not back by lunch, ask around in case she happened to get sick or something.”

As usual, no one questioned Kengo as he left--his classmates didn’t care, and Oosugi had already disappeared to whatever classroom was going to suffer through him for third period. Once Kengo verified that no one was around, he slipped into the storage room and stepped into the TV.

The feeling of being plummeted into the other world was as usual, as was the crash landing he still hadn’t mastered, and the creepy stage he emerged on. Everything was as expected, so for the life of him, he didn’t understand why he couldn’t pinpoint Miu’s location. It started as a vague region, covering too much of the TV world to make sense; if he focused, the radius would lessen, finally fixating on a single point...and then vanishing. When it came back, it was as a haze again, narrowing down to a completely different location, and the feedback it caused in Kengo’s mind was was starting to make his head hurt.

He left the TV, pulling out his phone to find several text messages from Gentarou, all of which boiled down to “Miu’s in the TV”. He squinted at the numbers of his phone clock--Gentarou seemed to have tapped into at  _ least  _ eight sources of information in the hour Kengo was gone, and that wasn’t including the much larger number of people that wouldn’t even have known Miu was absent. Given that their classmates would all be in the second category, and Gentarou assumedly hadn’t left the classroom, Kengo hadn’t the slightest speculation how he had gotten so much information,  _ and  _ without the teacher confiscating his phone. Kengo sent him a quick message confirming Miu’s situation, then headed to the cafeteria to meet up.

Yuuki and Gentarou were already at the usual table; a quick glance at the room indicated that JK had gone to chatter with the other rumor-mongers, and Miu’s empty seat had been taken over by one of her friends. Or at least, Kengo couldn’t remember if they had set positions--he hadn’t paid attention until Miu showed up on the Midnight Channel. He slid in next to Gentarou, and Yuuki immediately pushed a tray of food in front of him. Kengo picked up the sandwich from it and tore into it--the set of Gentarou’s jaw as he watched the cheerleaders’ table said the two of them would be attending afternoon class in the TV.

“Kengo...what do you think about them?” Gentarou tilted his chin to the cheerleaders.   
“Where they’re sitting?”  Gentarou’s eyes narrowed--he hadn’t noticed.   
“Jun-sempai’s expression.”   
“What?”   
“She’s too nervous.”   
“So? Her friend disappeared when people keep ending up on antennas.”   
“...It doesn’t feel right.”   
“Sempai---!” an arm slung abruptly across Kengo’s shoulders, almost pushing his forehead into his held sandwich; JK had somehow managed to squeeze between the second-year boys. At Kengo’s glare, he removed his arm, but kept one hand on Gentarou’s shoulder. He continued in a less energetic volume, “so no one’s heard from her since last night, not even Shun.”

“What about her family?” Yuuki replied on Kengo’s behalf, as the latter’s mouth was occupied with sandwich.   
JK rolled his eyes, “like they even know she’s gone--they’re both abroad for work, it’s why she’s got such an attitude--”   
“Skip the gossip, JK.” Gentarou cut in.   
“The current theory is that she’s scared of losing the Queen Festival to Tamae, but no one really knows where  _ that _ one got started.”   
“Hardly relevant. No one knows where  _ any  _ rumor starts.” Kengo grumbled between bites.   
“Shows how much you pay attention,” JK sniped back disdainfully, “It’s like finding patient zero, and in this case….I bet it’s Tamae.”   
“And  _ there’s  _ the start of a different rumor.” Kengo shot back. At least Gentarou’s info sources were clearer now.   
“Really? Because Tamae’s sitting in The Queen’s seat, and Jun is nervous-munching her weight--”

Kengo glanced at the other second-year boy, surprised he hadn’t cut JK off yet, only to have a chill run through him. Gentarou had  _ focused _ on Miu’s table, expression dark, and the pieces began to click into place.   
“Tamae…?” Kengo muttered; JK misinterpreted the question’s target.   
“She’s been playing second violin to Miu her entire high school career--how big of a rock have you been living under, Kengo-sempai?!”   
“Kisaragi!” Kengo cut off JK’s blathering; the other boy nodded slowly.   
“I don’t...I mean, how could she have--? But…”   
“We’ll just have to ask Miu.” Kengo chugged his drink and stood, “Let’s go.”

\---

Kengo didn’t mention the abnormality in his radar, instead confidently leading the way to the dungeon. It was probably from spending an unusually long time in the TV yesterday, or being exposed to so many shadows for so long--something that would resolve itself with sleep and a few days in the real world. If Gentarou were to find out...Kengo winced at how the other boy had  _ hovered _ when one of his migraines hit. It was best to keep this to himself.

The outside of the building hadn’t changed since Kengo’s last visit, but the alteration to the interior greeted them with a shout.   
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight!”   
Both boys jolted as Miu’s voice echoed through the dungeon, and neither moved for several seconds after it faded away.   
“Wha--? Is that normal?!” Gentarou whirled to his partner, who shook his head no.   
“I’ve never had that happen before.” Kengo readied his broomstick and extended his mental reach as far as he could--he could sense Miu somewhere above them, but her position was still shifting and anything else was limited to a vague direction. The jazz--swing?--music that hadn’t been present before wasn’t helping--sorta catchy, too distracting.

Kengo led at first, following the map they made yesterday, until two “paths” turned out to be dead ends and he ripped the page out of his notebook in frustration.   
“Don’t worry about it.”   
Kengo glanced up in surprise, having been in the middle of debating crumpling the map.   
“We know all the enemies on this floor, and this place isn’t that big.” Kengo didn’t reply, so Gentarou continued his chatter, “Backstage, though….that wouldn’t have been my first guess.”   
“‘Backstage’?”   
Gentarou nodded, “Ever worked on a play? Everything backstage is like this--” he tugged on one of the black curtains as they passed, “I think it’s to keep light from reaching the audience when the stage is dark. But there’s never any lights on backstage, anyway, and--” the gurgle of a shadow forming beyond the curtain cut him off; the two boys ducked inside and rushed the ball-mouth that had materialized, making short work of it with their weapons.

Miu’s disembodied voice greeted them again on the second floor.   
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!  _ Wrong! _ ” she snapped, “do it again!”   
Slightly less disoriented from the voice this time, they had taken four and a half steps before Gentarou’s foot slipped and sent him crashing to the ground.   
“If you need a break, just say so--” Kengo moved forward to offer a hand up and immediately lost traction as well, barely keeping upright. The floor didn’t seem wet or suddenly made of a different material, but--

Gentarou cautiously picked himself up as Kengo tested different stepping locations; the crime scene victim outlines were sparser than the previous floor. Gentarou watched his ally, then tried a few spots on his own.   
“So we have to step on the people…?”    
Kengo grimaced at the choice of words, “It seems that way.”

They cleared the floor at a rapid pace--Gentarou seemed to have gotten the hang of switching personas and avoiding hits to his weaknesses, keeping damage to a minimum. Even so, every fight seemed to take something from the persona-user--after the third floor, his idle chatter about his theater friends had turned into the occasional three word remark about the enemy.

Halfway through the fourth floor, Gentarou had lost his balance twice while on safe footing.    
“Kisaragi.”   
“.....mnh…?” Kengo drew a slow breath and grimaced. Miu was only a couple floors above them. They were close, so close--and Kisaragi had to be operating on willpower and a grand total of four brain cells. Kengo turned to head back to the stairs, figuring his ally would mindlessly follow, but Gentarou moved to block his path. Kengo corrected his earlier estimation-- _ five _ brain cells.   
“You’re too worn out to go further.”   
Gentarou didn’t budge; Kengo moved to pass him and was blocked again.   
“You aren’t even coherent enough to argue with me!”   
Gentarou scowled, pulled a battered piece of paper from his pocket, and held it out at Kengo--the defaced poster from his first visit to the dungeon.   
“She’ll be fine, it won’t be foggy for a while!”   
Gentarou shook his head forcefully and thrust the paper at Kengo again.

_ Not the girl, the  _ poster.

“...We’ll get to her before the Queenfest.”   
Gentarou held his ally’s gaze, then nodded and moved to let him pass.

\---

The next morning, Gentarou texted that he had some preparations to make before they went to “Miu’s Backstage”, and to meet in the TV after school. Kengo didn’t particularly care what his ally had in mind, but he agreed to the plan since it was better than following Kisaragi on one of his friends’-life-update’s rounds. Besides, with the weird way time functioned in the TV, Kengo wouldn’t be waiting all that long. He spent the time playing a bit with his radar--it hadn’t worsened, but the fact he still couldn’t quite pinpoint Miu was troublesome.

A yelp and a thud announced Gentarou’s entrance; Kengo turned and was rendered speechless by his appearance. It was far beyond what Kisaragi had worn when he tried to venture into the TV alone--he had added  _ chain mail _ over his usual uniform, and his elbow pads had been replaced with some kind of metal forearm-elbow plate armor. One hand carried a worn, bulging sports bag, while the other bore what was distinctly a  _ spear _ .

“Kengo?” Gentarou called out, glancing blindly about the fog. Kengo drew a deep breath, sighed heavily, and did his best to rein in his shock before stepping forward.   
“How did you get here dressed like  _ that?! _ ”   
“I told the teachers it was for LARPing.”   
“And they believed you?”   
“Well, I had to explain what LARPing  _ was _ for like ten minutes every time, but….yeah, pretty much. Here.” Gentarou handed the spear over, set the bag down, and began unstrapping the forearm guards.

“Yuuki managed to make all this last night. Amazing, isn’t she?” He passed the first arm guard to Kengo, “Put that on.”   
“What about you?”   
“I brought the old stuff.” he gestured at the duffel bag, “She didn’t have enough materials for two sets.”   
Kengo thrust the arm guard into Gentarou’s chest. “You’re the one doing all the fighting.”   
“But--”   
“She thinks you’re wearing it, doesn’t she?”   
Gentarou bit his lip; Kengo crouched, opened the bag, and began putting on its contents.   
“I’m not wearing the helmet, though.”


End file.
